The Life and Influences of J.R.R. Tolkien

The Life And Inspirations of J.R.R. Tolkien

People all over the world have read and enjoyed the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion, but few know much about his life and the things that inspired him to begin writing. John Ronald Reuel was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa on January 3, 1892 to Mabel and Arthur Tolkien and was christened on January 31st of that year in the Bloemfontein Cathedral. On February 17, 1894, Hilary Tolkien, J.R.R.T.’s younger brother was born. In April of the following year, Mabel took her two sons to Birmingham, England, her hometown, because of J.R.R.T.’s respiratory problems. Arthur planned to rejoin his family when time and business permitted. However, he never saw his family again because on February 15, 1896, he died after suffering a severe hemorrhage the previous day after having been sick for several months with rheumatic fever. Later that year, Mabel Tolkien moved her family to Sarehole.

J.R.R. took the entrance exam for King Edward’s School at age seven, but failed to obtain a place. In June of 1900, Mabel and her sister May were received into the Church of Rome despite the opposition of their Baptist relatives. In September of this year, J.R.R. retook the entrance exam for King Edward’s, and this time, he was accepted. The Tolkiens soon moved to Moseley so they would be closer to J.R.R.’s school. The following year, the Tolkiens move yet again to a small villa behind King’s Heath Station. Then, in early 1902, Mabel once again moves her family, this time to Edgbaston, in a house next door to the Birmingham Oratory and the Grammar School of St. Philip. To save money, she removed the boys from Kings Edward’s School and enrolled them in St. Philip’s. In autumn of the next year, 1903, J.R.R. won a Foundation Scholarship to King Edward’s and returned there to continue his studies.

On November 14, 1904, Mabel Tolkien died at age thirty-four after spending six days in a diabetic coma. J.R.R. and Hilary then moved in with their Aunt, Beatrice Suffield. Early in 1905, the guardianship of the boys was taken over by Father Francis Xavier Morgan, a priest of the Birmingham Oratory who had been one of Mabel’s close friends. The boys moved to 37 Duchess Road, behind the Birmingham oratory early in 1908, and around this same time, J.R.R. began his first term at Oxford. On December 17, 1910, he was awarded an Open Classical Exhibition to Exeter College. J.R.R. took the Honours Moderation exams in 1913 and was awarded a First Class Honours degree in English Language and Literature in 1915.

On March 22, 1916, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien married Edith Bratt, and in June of that year was sent into battle in World War I as second Lieutenant of the Lancashire Fusiliers. In 1917, J.R.R.’s first son, John is born. Starting in 1919, J.R.R. worked as an assistant on the Oxford English dictionary for two years, and in 1920, his second son, Michael was born. On July 16, 1924, J.R.R. was appointed as a Professor of English Language at the University of Leeds, and his professorship began on October 1st of that year Also in 1924, his third son, Christopher, was born.

On October 21 of the following year, Tolkien submitted his resignation from the University of Leeds, and moved to Oxford where he served as Rawlings Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College for the next twenty-four years. In 1926, J.R.R. met C.S. Lewis for the first time, and began a friendship that would last a lifetime. Three years later, his fourth child, but first daughter, Priscilla, was born. Around 1933, J.R.R. first began telling his children of a peculiar little creature named Bilbo, and three years later, in 1936, The Hobbit was completed. It was published the following year, and Tolkien began working on the sequel. Throughout 1938-39, Tolkien wrote “Leaf by Niggle.”

In 1945, Tolkien became Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford, and in 1948, “Leaf by Niggle” was published. This same year, Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings, and in 1949, Farmer Giles of Ham was published. The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings, were published in 1954. The Return of the King, the final portion, was published the following year. In 1959, Tolkien retired his professorship at Oxford, and in 1962, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil was published. “Leaf by Niggle” and “On Fairy Stories” were published together in a single edition called Tree and Leaf in 1964, and the following year, the first American paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings was published. Smith of Wooton Major and The Road Goes Ever On were published in 1967, and one year after this, the Tolkien family moved to Poole, near Bournemouth.

On November 29, 1971, Edith Tolkien died after a short, but very severe illness attributed to an inflamed gall-bladder. On September 2, 1973, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien died in a private hospital in Bournemouth at the age of eighty-one. The Silmarillion was published in 1977 after the final editing was completed by J.R.R.’s son, Christopher (Friesen).

Very early in his life, although he did not realize it at the time, Tolkien encountered what may have been the inspiration for some of Middle-Earth’s most vile creatures, the giant spiders. When he was still an infant, just beginning to walk, J.R.R. came across a tarantula in his family garden in Africa. Being a curious young child, he did not know what this creature was, and somehow aggravated it and was bitten. He ran around the garden screaming until his nanny found him and sucked the poison out of the wound. Although he never developed arachnophobia, it is believed that this early childhood encounter, at least subconsciously, is the inspiration for such beasts as Ungoliant and Shelob, as well as her offspring (Colbert 2002, 141-144). “Then the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up even to the roots of the Trees, and Melkor sprang upon the mound; and with his black spear he smote each Tree to its core, wounded them deep, and their sap poured forth as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the ground. But Ungoliant sucked it up, and going then from Tree to Tree she set her black beak to their wounds, till they were drained; and the poison of Death that was in her went into their tissues and withered them, root, branch and leaf; and they died” (Tolkien 1977, 73).

Throughout much of his life, Tolkien had a recurring nightmare that would wake him out of a deep sleep in sheer terror each time he had it. Every time it was the same. A huge wave would appear out of the ocean, and he would awaken feeling as though he had been drowning. Tolkien thought that this seemed very similar to the legend of Atlantis, which was written down by the Greek philosopher Plato twenty-four hundred years ago. In this legend, the Atlanteans started a war against Athens, and as punishment, Zeus sunk their home. J.R.R. was determined to figure out the cause of his dream, so he wrote what later became a crucial part of Middle-Earth’s history. This was the story of Númenor and its destruction. Númenor was an island given to a group of men for helping the elves during a time of war, but these men were soon tricked by Sauron and became evil. For this, the Valar, the gods of Middle- Earth, sent a wave to destroy the island and all of its ships. A few of the still honorable men of Númenor escape and establish the kingdom of Gondor. Tolkien believed the legend of Atlantis was based in truth, and that his nightmare was a memory from an ancestor who had lived through the catastrophe, and as a result of examining his nightmare, he stopped having it (Colbert 2002, 65-70).

Throughout his life, Tolkien had an incredible love of trees, which is shown in many ways throughout his works, especially The Lord of the Rings, including the Ents, Old Man Willow, and the many forests all over Middle-Earth. Pippin’s description of the Ents’ eyes in The Two Towers was “One felt as if there were an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long slow steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present: like the sun shimmering on the outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don’t know, but it felt as if something that grew in the ground—asleep, you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky—had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years” (Tolkien 1954, 452). The creation of the Ents can be largely attributed to Shakespeare’s Macbeth. In this story, Macbeth is told by a ghost that he will not be defeated unless a certain forest marches to fight him. Macbeth is confident, knowing that a forest cannot uproot itself and march where it pleases. However, near the end of the story, a watchman runs to Macbeth saying that he has seen a moving forest. It turns out to not be a forest of trees, but an army disguised with leaves and branches from the forest the ghost had named (Colbert 2002, 37-42). This disappointed Tolkien immensely, and he later said, “I long to devise a setting in which trees might really march to war” (Carpenter 2000, 212). This is exactly what he did in The Two Towers, the second part of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, when the Ents march to Isengard and take over (Colbert 2002, 37-42).

One day, while he should have been studying in the Exeter College Library, Tolkien came across a Finnish grammar book, and it has been said that this was “the rocket that launched his stories.” Finnish is the strongest influence in most of his invented languages, especially Quenya, or High-Elven (Colbert 2002, 75-80). "It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me; and I gave up the attempt to invent an 'unrecorded' Germanic language, and my 'own language'—or series of invented languages—became heavily Finnicized in phonetic pattern and structure" (Carpenter 2000, 214) When he found this book, it made him think back to a Finnish epic that he had read a translation of a few years prior. This epic was The Kalevala, which is a collection of songs, poems, stories and magical charms passed down by folk singers. Much of it was compiled, organized, and written down in the 1830’s or 1840’s by Elias Lönrot. This is considered the “national epic” of Finland (Colbert 2002, 75-80). Tolkien felt compelled to write a similar epic for England because after a series of migrations of many peoples through the land that is now England, many of the oral histories of previous eras were lost. In an attempt to try to make up for this loss, Tolkien spent years meticulously developing and detailing the history of Middle-Earth. This history was later transformed into his book The Silmarillion (National Geographic, Influences on the Lord of the Rings). Many similarities can be drawn between The Kalevala and Tolkien’s works. The most obvious example is, just as Ilúvatar shapes Middle-Earth in The Silmarillion, Ilmata forms the Earth in The Kalevala. He also adapted several other themes and even whole stories from this epic into his works. The Kalevala was a wonderful proof that an idea he desired to try could, in fact, succeed (Colbert 2002, 75-80).

Also during his studies at Oxford, he came across an Anglo-Saxon work entitled Ancrene Wisse. This was written between 1225 and 1240 by either and Augustinian canon or a Dominican Friar as religious instruction for three sisters of noble birth who were anchoresses somewhere in the West Midlands. Ancrene Wisse was written in Old English, which Tolkien studied, although this was not a language typically used for religious instruction (Hasenfratz). It has been said that Tolkien was “deeply influenced by the content, structure, and language of these works[Ancrene Wisse and other similar works such as Crist of Cynewulf] and brought them into his own works” (Boyd-Graber).

After finishing his degree, Tolkien had joined the Lancashire Fusiliers, and was sent to France in 1916 to fight in World War I, where he and fellow soldiers took part in some of the bloodiest battles in human history including the Battle of the Somme, in which over a million people were killed or wounded. Tolkien recorded the horrors of war while in the trenches, which would later resurface in The Lord of the Rings. He caught trench fever, which was a disease carried by lice later that year, and he was soon sent back to England. During his recovery, he began writing the mythology and stories of Middle-Earth, which later became the basis for The Silmarillion (National Geographic, Influences on the Lord of the Rings).

Some of the most vivid and dramatic chapters were written during the course of World War II, in which his son was fighting. Gandalf’s fall into Moria, after the long, brutal battle against the gruesome Balrog, was written in 1941 (Hewat). “Long time I fell, and he fell with me. His fire was about me, and I was burned. Then we plunged into the deep water and all was dark. Cold it was as the tide of death: almost it froze my heart… Thither I came at last, to the uttermost foundations of stone. He was with me still. His fire was quenched, but now he was a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake. We fought far under the living earth, where time is not counted. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into the dark tunnels” (Tolkien 1954, 490). Sam and Frodo’s treacherous journey into Mordor was written in 1944, also being influenced by the war (Hewat). “‘Water, water!’ muttered Sam. He had stinted himself, and in his parched mouth his tongue seemed thick and swollen; but for all his care they now had very little left, perhaps half his bottle, and maybe there were still two days to go. All would long ago have been spent, if they had not dared to follow the orc-road. For at long intervals on that highway cisterns had been built for the use of troops sent in haste through the waterless regions. In one Sam had found some water left, stale, muddied by the orcs, but still sufficient for their desperate case. Yet that was now a day ago. There was no hope of any more.” (Tolkien 1954, 915)

Frodo’s view from Tom Bombadil’s house was inspired by the view from the guest house at Stonyhurst College, in which Tolkien and his family often stayed. “Frodo ran to the eastern window, and found himself looking into a kitchen-garden grey with dew… his view was screened by a tall line of beans on poles; but above and far beyond they grey top of the hill loomed up against the sunrise… The sky spoke of rain to come; but the light was broadening quickly, and the red flowers on the beans began to glow against the wet green leaves.” (Tolkien 1954, 126) When looking out of the window at the guest house at Stonyhurst in the summer, one would find the runner beans in full bloom, with vibrant scarlet flowers (Hewat).

The industrial revolution also influenced Tolkien’s writing, because of his deep concern for the well-being of nature. Although he was born well after the industrial revolution, he still witnessed its lasting effects on the environment around him, first in Birmingham as a child and then as an adult in Oxford. Tolkien’s concern for nature can be seen throughout The Lord of the Rings. The evil beings abuse and dominate nature to enhance their own power. For example, Saruman destroys and ancient forest when building his army of orcs. In contrast, the Elves live in harmony with nature and admire its beauty (National Geographic, Influences on the Lord of the Rings).

Tolkien’s writing was also influenced by several different mythologies, including Norse Mythology. Odin is the most powerful God in Norse Mythology, and one tale about him may have been Tolkien’s inspiration for the whole concept of The Lord of the Rings. In this story, Odin owns a magical ring, called Draupnir, which every ninth night, produces eight new rings, which Draupnir then rules. In The Lord of the Rings there are Nine Rings of Men and One Ring to rule them all (Tolkien and Norse Mythology).

Another type of mythology that had an effect on Tolkien’s writing was Icelandic Mythology. Most of these tales were written down in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but the oral tradition of mythology in Iceland can be dated back to as early as the fourth or fifth century. However, it was not the tales of family sagas or bloody feuds or the clashes between Pagans and Christians during Scandinavia’s Christianization that influenced Tolkien’s works (Heart O’ Glory). It was the names, and many of the names of Dwarves can be directly linked from Old Icelandic tales (Carpenter 2000, 382-383).

Yet another type of mythology that affected Tolkien’s writing was Gothic Mythology. This type of mythology was a romantic literary style which typically included supernatural aspects, especially vampires (Hare). Tolkien found the Gothic language, which is the earliest of the Germanic languages, to be a very beautiful one, and he became very knowledgeable on it, although he did not speak it fluently (Carpenter 2000, 356-358).

“Beowulf is one of my most valued sources,” Tolkien once said (Carpenter 2000, 31), and many similarities can be drawn between this Anglo-Saxon epic and Tolkien’s works, especially The Hobbit. Beowulf is the story of a great hero named Beowulf, who set out for Hrothgar’s kingdom after he heard news that it was being terrorized by a terrible monster. The first night, when the monster, Grendel, came, Beowulf cut off his right arm and hung it upon a wall. The next night, Grendel’s mother came to “avenge her son” and took Hrothgar’s dearest advisor and Grendel’s severed arm before leaving. Beowulf journeys to Grendel’s marshland lair, and after a struggle, plunges a sword into the heart of Grendel’s mother. He then saw Grendel lying nearby, and cut of his head. Afterwards, there was a great deal of rejoice and feasting in the kingdom. Beowulf later became Kings of the Geats back in his homeland, and after fifty years of reigning well, a subject stumbles across the lair of a dragon and awakens it. Beowulf battles the dragon, although he is getting old, and kills it after a long struggle but dies later from loss of blood during the battle (Awerty Notes). One example of a similarity between this and The Hobbit is that in both, a cup is stolen from the treasure hoard of a dragon. Also, Gandalf has several similarities to Hrothgar, the King of the Danes. Both are physically weak but make up for this in knowledge and experience, and they both have long beards, a commanding presence, and a strong voice. They also both serve as a mentor and the “wise old man” that guides the actions of the hero. Another likeness between Beowulf and Tolkien’s works is that both Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings involve the end of an era. Beowulf is the journey of one man from the prime of his life to his death and the destruction of his kingdom. At the end of The Lord of the Rings, an entire race of the Elves goes to the Undying Lands, never to return, and the Third Age of the Sun ends , marking the end of the power of the rings and the resurgence of men (Boyd-Graber).

Throughout history, caves can be found in myths and tales all over the world. Tolkien also incorporated them into his works several times. The use of caves in stories is a story telling tradition. In caves, the characters can face more than just monsters, but also their own doubts and fears. In one Greek myth, Orpheus braves the Underworld and fights the guard dog Cerberus to rescue his lover, Eurydice. In Aenid, a Roman epic, the hero enters a cave to the underworld is warned “Summon up your courage, for you will need it.” Tolkien was very religious and even rewords part of the Bible when, in The Lord of the Rings, Malbeth the Seer makes a prediction about Aragorn’s descent into the Paths of the Dead (Colbert 2002, 15-18). “The tower trembles; to the tombs of kings doom approaches. The Dead awaken; for the hour is come for the oathbreakers: at the Stone of Erech they shall stand again” (Tolkien 1954, 764). The Bible read similarly after Jesus Christ is shut in a cave behind a great rock. “The Earth quaked, rocks were split, tombs were opened, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming forth from their tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” Caves cause characters to look into their own minds. Sometimes the dangers are the characters’ worst nightmares incarnated, and other times, the dangers are too awful to have been imagined. Even Aragorn, who is scared by very few things, remains haunted by his journey into Moria (Colbert 2002, 15-18). “Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not” (Tolkien 1954, 490).

In Tolkien’s works, the majority of the prominent architectural structures are towers. They have long been prominent in literature, because they signify wealth and power. The idea that they rise high above the surrounding land portrays a type of limitless view of what goes on around, making towers seem intimidating. In the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien describes the nature of Hobbits by saying that “They did not go in for towers.” Many of the characters enter or go near at least one of the over half dozen present in The Lord of the Rings. Gandalf is imprisoned in Orthanc, and Frodo is tortured by Orcs in Cirith Ungol, for example (Colbert 2002, 155-158).

Often times, people may wonder why Tolkien decided to write about a fellowship rather than just a single hero, but this never crossed Tolkien’s mind because of his activeness in groups. During both his studies and his teaching days, he was almost always a member of a club that he had either created himself or joined. While teaching at Leeds University, Tolkien and a colleague formed a Viking Club that “met to drink large quantities of beer, read sagas, and sing comic songs.” When he transferred to Oxford University, he created another Norse literature club, with less drinking and more reading, called the Coalbiters. Tolkien was also a member of the Inklings, which also included C.S. Lewis, who later went on to write The Chronicles of Narnia. Tolkien’s constant involvement with groups made writing about a group, or fellowship, more natural than telling the story of just one individual (Colbert 2002,151-154).

Almost immediately after its publication, many readers of The Hobbit began to wonder what the origin of the word “hobbit” was. Many assumed that because of the hairy feet and the fact that Bilbo had on several occasions been called a “nasty little rabbit,” the word “hobbit” must have been a combination of “human” and “rabbit.” Of course, they were incorrect. The word actually came to Tolkien in a flash while correcting papers at Oxford, when, on a whim, he wrote “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” He then set himself to the task of figuring out what a hobbit was and why it was in this hole. It was not until later that he realized its origins. “Hol bytla” is the Old English phrase for “hole-dweller,” so this word made perfect sense for a professor of Old English to come up with, and of course a Hobbit would live in a hole. The word “hobbit” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in the 1970’s, and Tolkien was credited with its first use after having to find extensive proof that it had never before been used with a similar meaning (Colbert 2002, 71-74). Tolkien once wrote in a letter to Roger Lancelyn Green, “Oh what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to conceive” (Carpenter 2000, 407).

In The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf is a rather mysterious character. Gandalf the Grey is one of the Istari, sent to Middle-Earth to help its inhabitants. Tolkien based many of Gandalf’s characteristics on those of Odin, the most powerful God in Norse Mythology. Both are long-bearded old men with walking sticks who have supernatural power and seem to be alone on a quest that other cannot understand. However, there are also many key differences between the two. Odin is the supreme god, but Gandalf is following orders from the Valar. Gandalf is very compassionate and understanding whereas Odin is cruel and has sacrifices made to him. Tolkien often referred to Gandalf as “Odinic,” meaning that he was similar to Odin but that they were by no means identical (Colbert 2002, 51-56).

Several Norse legends tell of a small, greedy cave-dwelling character with a ring and wanting revenge. This may sound very similar to Gollum, and that is because this character is where the idea of Gollum came from. One such story in which this character appeared happened to be one of Tolkien’s favorite childhood stories, “The Story of Sigurd.” In this story, Andvari, king of the dwarves, possessed a magical ring and the treasure it produced. He kept it in a cave, and lived there himself. The cave was huge and had a waterfall with a pond full of fish. Sometimes Andvari would turn into a large fish so he could catch smaller ones to eat. Gollum was always hungry for raw “fishes” and shared several qualities including greed with Andvari (Colbert 2002, 57-60). “Lurking by a stagnant mere, peering in the water as the dark eve fell, I caught him, Gollum. He was covered with green slime. He will never love me, I fear; for he bit me, and I was not gentle. Nothing more did I get from his mouth than the marks of his teeth. I deemed it the worst part of all my journey, the road back, watching him day and night, making him walk before me with a halter on his neck, gagged, until he was tamed by lack of drink and food, driving him ever towards Mirkwood… I was glad to be rid of his company, for he stank” (Tolkien 1954, 247).

In The Lord of the Rings, the Dark Lord, Sauron, typically appears as a fiery eye, and there are few references to him having an actual physical form other than the battle in which the One Ring was cut from his finger. Legends as early as those of the Egyptians use one-eyed gods and demons. Sun and moon gods in many ancient cultures had one eye, and this symbolized that they were all- seeing and you could not keep a secret from them, just like you cannot escape the sun’s glare. Gollum tries to avoid the sun and the moon, in The Lord of the Rings, because they remind him of Sauron’s eye (Colbert 2002, 123-126).

When creating names for the people, creatures, and places in his stories, Tolkien often used the roots of other words from other languages. A very simple example is the name Shelob. “Lob” is the Old English term for spider, so “she-lob” would be a female spider. “Woses,” or wild-men of Middle-Earth, is Tolkien’s shortened form of “wodwos,” which are Old English legendary wild men of the forest. Saruman comes from the Old English word “searu,” which means “tricky” or “cunning.” Cirith Ungol, the home of Shelob, is Old English for “spider pass,” and “Mordor” comes from the Old English word “morthor” meaning “murder.” “Sauron” is Old Norse for “filth or dung.” Middle-Earth comes from the Old English mane for Earth itself, “middan-geard.” Many Dwarvish names were the names of places found in Icelandic mythology. The name “Mirkwood” can be found in many old stories as the name of a confusing forest. Tolkien borrowed the phrase “Misty Mountains” from Norse mythology, in which this was usually a place of hidden dangers. “Rohan” was the name of a famous family in France, but Tolkien not trying to make a point by using this word, he just liked it. Some names were pure imagination, such as the original name for the main hero of The Lord of the Rings, Bingo Bolger-Baggins. This was later changed to Frodo Baggins, when the story became much more serious than the name suggested. The name Frodo is a modification of a name briefly mentioned in Beowulf, Fródi, which was the name of a king (Colbert 2002, 97-102).

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was influenced by many things during his life that affected the outcome of his writing. Even during his infancy, things were already occurring that would later influence his writing, like the tarantula bite. His love of trees and nature is shown throughout his works, and a recurring nightmare can be attributed to an important part of Middle-Earth’s history. Other literary works were also highly influential in Tolkien’s writing. Macbeth gave him the inspiration for the Ents, and the Kalevala inspired Tolkien to start this type of story in the first place so he could create a mythological past for England. Both World War I and World War II also had a profound impact on J.R.R.’s life, and therefore his writing, and some of the most vivid chapters were written during the war years. Even things as simple as the view from a favorite place of relaxation are reflected in his writings. Many different types of mythology, including Norse, Icelandic, and Gothic influenced Tolkien’s writing, especially the names of characters and places. Beowulf< was one of Tolkien’s biggest influences in his works, and there are many obvious similarities between both characters and sections of the plot. The traditional use of caves to have the heroes face more than just monsters, and towers to symbolize power is shown many times throughout his works, and the origins of many characters, including Gandalf, Gollum, and Sauron’s Eye, can be traced back to very similar characters in mythology. The derivation for names of the people and places of Middle-Earth can be found in many other languages that Tolkien knew, including Old English, Old Norse, and Icelandic, and some names were purely creativity. Although, to many, Tolkien’s works may seem completely unique and unlike any other, it is clear that throughout his life, he was influenced by his environment as well as the things he studied.